Samsung has accused Apple of calling expert witnesses that exhibit “slavish adoration” to the company during an ongoing patent trial between the two consumer electronics giants. As noted by patent expert Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents, court documents filed by Samsung in California seek to exclude testimony made by a number of Apple’s expert witnesses on the grounds that they were biased. (more…)

Samsung’s mobile boss JK Shin on Sunday confirmed to reporters that the South Korea-based consumer electronics giant is making new efforts to end its patent war with Apple. While Shin did admit that there is still much work to be done, he said there are a number of possible resolutions that the companies will consider. “There is still a big gap in the patent war with Apple but we still have several negotiation options including cross-licensing,” Shin told reporters at the Seoul airport while...

As Research In Motion continues to explore any and all options that might help carry it through the next two quarters until it finally launches its first BlackBerry 10 smartphone and beyond, one option reportedly on the table is patent trolling. RIM recently hired law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP to explore a number of possible paths it might take in the near term and the long term as its struggles continue, and according to Techdirt, one of those options is to take a more aggressive stance ...

Microsoft and Facebook on Monday announced a $550 million patent agreement in which the social networking giant will purchase a portion of the patent portfolio Microsoft recently acquired recently from Aol. Facebook will take ownership of approximately 650 former Aol patents, and it will license the remaining patents owned by the software giant. Microsoft will retain ownership of approximately 275 Aol patents and will license the additional 650 Aol patents to be transferred to Facebook. “Today’s agre...

Twitter’s lead engineer confirmed in a post on the company’s blog on Tuesday that Twitter will not use its patents aggressively. “Patent trolling” is a strategy that has become increasingly popular in recent years. Companies with active product portfolios aim to stifle competition and protect their intellectual property by using patents offensively, and companies without active portfolios purchase patents from inventors and use the patent system as a core means of generating revenue. A...

AOL and Microsoft on Monday announced an agreement in which the software giant will purchase 800 patents from AOL in a $1.056 billion cash deal. Microsoft will also license more than 300 additional patents from AOL as part of the agreement. “The agreement with Microsoft represents the culmination of a robust auction process for our patent portfolio,” said Tim Armstrong, AOL’s chairman and CEO. “We continue to hold a valuable patent portfolio as highlighted by the license we entered into wi...

Facebook on Thursday acquired 750 patents from IBM in an effort to boost the company’s defense and counter new lawsuits, according to Bloomberg. The patents reportedly cover various technologies relating to software and networking. The acquisition would more than double the size of Facebook’s portfolio, which currently includes at least 56 issued patents and 503 filed U.S. patent applications. The patent acquisition comes after Yahoo, a business partner of Facebook, filed a massive patent infringem...

A U.S. judge in San Francisco has scheduled the trial between Oracle and Google for April 16th, Reuters reported on Tuesday. Oracle sued Google in 2010, alleging that the Mountain View-based company’s Android operating system infringes Oracle’s intellectual property covering the Java programming language. In addition, the company is also suing Google for copyright infringement, which could earn Oracle hundreds of millions of dollars. “These patent and copyright claims are without merit, and...

A Dutch judge on Wednesday ruled that the iPhone 4S does not infringe Samsung’s patents, Dutch website Tweakers reported. The Hague court has not yet ruled whether Apple’s earlier models and iPad 2 tablet infringe the vendor’s patents due to different implementations of 3G technology that may be protected. Samsung accused Apple’s iPhone 4S of infringing its industry essential 3G patent, although Qualcomm already licensed the technology for the chip, which is found within Apple’s...

Yahoo has filed a massive patent infringement lawsuit against its business partner, Facebook, AllThingsD reported on Monday. The search company claims that Facebook’s News Feed, advertising methods, privacy settings and more infringe its patents. “Facebook’s entire social network model, which allows users to create profiles for and connect with, among other things, persons and businesses, is based on Yahoo’s patented social networking technology,” Yahoo’s lawsuit said. The company claims t...

Apple has accused Samsung of violating a court order to produce its source code in a recent patent infringement case. The Cupertino-based company claims that the vendor has “only partially complied with” a judge’s order that required Samsung to hand over the source code for its 4G smartphones and Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet, Bloomberg reported on Monday. According to a recent court filing, Apple claims that Samsung has only produced the source code for one version of each of the infringing device...

Samsung on Wednesday confirmed that it has filed another lawsuit against Apple in South Korea, according to a report from Reuters. Since last year, the two companies have been involved in heated legal battles throughout 10 different countries, racking up more than 30 separate complaints that have been filed. The newest lawsuit targets the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, and Samsung claims both devices infringe three of the company’s “utility” patents, which involve methods of displaying data, a device...

Apple is currently locked in dozens of lawsuits around the world with various Android vendors, but the Cupertino-based company is apparently willing to negotiate terms that would end a number of its outstanding spats. According to sources speaking with Dow Jones Newswires, Apple has proposed settlements to at least two Android smartphone vendors. Under the terms of Apple’s proposed deals, which were reportedly offered to both Samsung and Motorola, the company would collect royalties of between $5 and $1...

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was no stranger to legal battles involving the patent system. Apple is currently waging war on a number of Android vendors and the company’s former CEO vowed to crush Google’s mobile platform before his untimely passing last year. ”I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography of the Apple boss. “I’m going to d...